Row erupts over consultants’ contract

A MAJOR row is erupting between medical consultants and the HSE over claims some doctors are breaching their contracts by treating almost double the number of private patients than allowed under existing rules.

In recent days the HSE has revealed that 35 senior hospital doctors are failing to limit their private practice work to either the 70:30 or 80:20 public-private ratio requirements drawn up as part of the 2008 consultant contract, which took almost half a decade to negotiate.

As part of these long, drawn-out discussions between the HSE Employers Agency and medical unions the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) and Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA), it was agreed that senior hospital doctors who signed up to the new category II contract would be paid between €155,000 and €190,000 in return for reducing their private work.